Fifty years ago, when I was a child, my uncle delighted me by telling me how Odysseus used wordplay to escape from the cave of a one-eyed giant who wanted to eat him. After thinking about the movie for a few weeks, I decided I wanted to write something about it.

BikeShareTO is arguably the single greatest Canadian public services success of the 21st century, and I really can't think of another obvious contender that comes even close.

Matt Armstrong@matta7.bsky.social · 6d ago

Recently had to explain to a professional from outside Toronto, that the vast majority of downtown Toronto workers commute by bike, walking, or transit. Some drive, but they are the minority. Perhaps I should show them these bike share stations…

People say this to me sometimes and I feel the same way. Get in there and read all the books! It's free and amazing!

Tom Cox@dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 2w ago

Someone said to me, "I'm sorry but I got your book from a library." Nobody should ever apologise for that. You read my book! That's brilliant! I grew up hanging out in libraries and the idea of a world without them fills me with dread. Without libraries, authors, like readers, will only suffer.

Buglarian correspondent Ivo Ivanov, who happens to live in Lawrence, reveals his favorite moment of the World Cup to Bulgarian TV viewers. Watch this if you need a reminder about what, or actually who, really constitutes the United States of America. (auto-transcribed & translated as usual)

Our neighbours are acting like meth heads www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Stephen Maher: American response to Canadian wildfires just proves their addiction to this one thing

The entire MAGA argument for blaming this country rests on a false premise

thestar.com

I saw the Odyssey on Sunday and have been thinking about it steadily since, reading articles etc, and have a few things I want to say about it.

Here's a mental exercise for people who think we can "manage" fire risk in the boreal forest. If you drive from Goose Bay to Churchill Falls, and you stop your car and walk into the woods on the north side of the road, you can walk all the way to Russia before you hit a town.

It's a total mystery why more allies won't go to bat for us against Iran.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3w ago

Trump posts an image featuring a map showing the United States taking over Canada and Greenland

most striking thing for me in this article is the apparently enormous discrepancy in reading habits between Canada and the U.S. in 2025, 79% of Canadians reported reading at least one book. www.booknetcanada.ca/canadian-lei...

Esther Schindler@estherschindler.bsky.social · 4w ago

“Fewer than half of all adults reported having read a book of any kind in 2022. Only 38 percent read a novel or short story."

Same could be said about the Trudeau government's changes to government advertising (which the Carney government has rolled back).

Adam Radwanski@aradwanski.bsky.social · 4w ago

The (at least partial) reversal of Trudeau's approach to the Senate strikes me as a good example of a fairly common phenomenon, in which politicians make governance reforms which prove to have little political benefit, because we're reluctant to give politicians credit for that kind of thing.

I'm so disillusioned, I almost don't even care who gets the FIFA Peace Prize next year

There’s never been anyone whose involvement more completely and immediately poisons vibes and destroys joy. No good thing survives contact.

Well the score wasn’t what I wanted but the rest of this definitely panned out

Katie Mack@astrokatie.com · last mo.

I am from LA and my grandma was Mexican so of course I am rooting for Mexico but going solely by the real-time reactions online I am also sort of rooting for the game to continue to be as chaotic and unhinged as possible

This is a good day to talk about our southern neighbours and their revolution, not out of a desire to insult them on a day that should be full of hotdogs, bunting and fireworks, but because our history is shared and we too often let their version of events into our brains. 1/19

Huzzah! Grateful to Ricochet for sending me to Quebec and Alberta during the election to take a close look at the separatist movements in both provinces. It was a great experience, and I was happy with the articles: ricochet.media/author/steph...

Stephen Maher

ricochet.media

Ricochet Media@ricochetmedia.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Congratulations to Stephen Maher on his silver win in the prestigious Online Media category for his Michener Foundation-supported election series on separatist movements in Canada, illustrated by Konnor Killoran’s amazing photos. Ricochet’s second win of the evening!

Congratulations to Stephen Maher on his silver win in the prestigious Online Media category for his Michener Foundation-supported election series on separatist movements in Canada, illustrated by Konnor Killoran’s amazing photos. Ricochet’s second win of the evening!

Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ)@cajournalists.bsky.social · 2mo ago

🏆🥈Congratulations to @stephenmaher.bsky.social and Konnor Killoran at @ricochetmedia.bsky.social, Silver winners for Online Media for "Separatism in Canada" https://loom.ly/O5rzSbM 🏆🥈Félicitations à Stephen Maher and Konnor Killoran, gagnants argent pour le Prix ACJ Médias en ligne

Oh my. This is spectacular. sinceyouarrived.world/taken

taken.

A web page that tells you what your browser gave away the moment you arrived. No login, no form, no permission. Most pages do this. None of them tell you.

sinceyouarrived.world

A must read. Serious questions raised about the competency of Elections Alberta. They were warned, in detail, a month before they acted. Meanwhile, the private information of millions of Albertans was wide open. Incredible. This may be the biggest privacy breach in Canadian history.

Jared Wesley@jaredwesley.ca · 3mo ago

Important new information on who knew what when. substack.com/@jengerson/n...

Newly appointed to Canada's federal advisory committee on Canada-U.S. relations, Eliot Pence and his company, Dominion Dynamics, have big ambitions: high-tech drones, Arctic comms networks, and Canadian sovereignty. @stephenmaher.bsky.social reports: www.begiant.ca/stories/peop...

Meet Eliot Pence, the man turning Canada’s defence procurement upside down

Eliot Pence of Dominion Dynamics is using venture capital to build military equipment he hopes the government will one day buy

begiant.ca

Just finished reading this brilliant terrifying essay by one of my favorite writers and i highly recommend it

The New York Review of Books@nybooks.com · 4mo ago

Fintan O’Toole (@fotoole.bsky.social) on Trump’s derangement syndrome

The 85-year-old widow “was chained by her wrists and ankles to other inmates and loaded onto buses and a plane ‘like a potato sack.’ After two weeks in detention in Alabama and Louisiana, she said, she feared she might die.” www.nytimes.com/2026/04/25/u...

The 85-Year-Old Widow Snagged by Trump’s Immigration Crackdown

nytimes.com

If you sold tickets to a series of debates on the economy between Mark Carney and Andrew Scheer I’m pretty sure you could make a sizeable dent in the federal deficit. #cdnpoli

How Canada Fell in Love with Mark Carney, @stephenmaher.bsky.social writes time.com/article/2026... Find out more at nationalnewswatch.com

How Canada Fell in Love with Mark Carney

Thanks to Trump’s unpopularity, “Carney seems to be headed from triumph to triumph,” writes Stephen Maher.

time.com

Don't we have enough data already? I feel water is more important that data.

Adrienne Tanner@adriennetanner.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Alberta government doesn't think an impact assessment is needed for Kevin O'Leary's monster data centre even though it will use about 24 million cubic meters of water annually — roughly 460,000 people's lifetime consumption. www.nationalobserver.com/2026/04/03/n...

Liberals should be wary of a grown-up Poilievre www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Stephen Maher: Pierre Poilievre is finally acting like a grown-up. Mark Carney would be wrong to discount him

The “security” of having what Poilievre has called the “worst damn job in the country” has given him time to reconsider his approach

thestar.com

You can’t put your name on it if AI wrote it. It is lying, and that goes against the point of writing, which is about seeking truth.

Laura Keating@lorekeating.bsky.social · 4mo ago

I keep seeing "all authors use AI, the real issue is they're being forced to be sneaky about it" headlines. Full stop No. This is a lie peddled for normalization. It's schoolyard-level pressure tactics "C'mon, all the cool kids are already doing it. We won't tell. It's fine. We're on your side."

For years I have been dividing my time between Canada and a sailboat in the south seas, having adventures and doing boat maintenance. I decided this year to finally write something about it. www.yachtingworld.com/interview/be...

Beating the thorny path: A modern pilgrimage to luperon

Luperon, in the Dominican Republic, is indisputably one of the Caribbean’s best hurricane holes. Stephen Maher reports on its unique appeal – and meets legendary cruising writer Bruce Van Sant

yachtingworld.com

I've been spending time on the beautiful north coast of the Dominican Republic for the past three winters, enjoying the sun, the beaches and, especially, the friendly, easy going people, but I am troubled by the way the Haitian migrants there are treated. 1/x